


Liquid Courage

by carlyraejepsen



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Smooth by Santana, Stupid Teenagers, one-sided Sidon/Link, teen drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlyraejepsen/pseuds/carlyraejepsen
Summary: Link gets blackout drunk at a high school party. He pieces together the events of the night using pictures off Zelda's camera roll. Link ends up regretting a lot of things.





	Liquid Courage

**Author's Note:**

> a few disclaimers:  
> \- believe me i am 100% aware that this isnt how getting blackout drunk works. I just really goddam liked the idea of recreating the botw plot under a really short period of time using wasted high schoolers so here we are  
> \- everybody (characters from 100 years ago & characters from the game’s present) exists in this au bc… its more fun  
> \- i kept losing motivation on this so it took me 8 fuckin months. enjoy

There are many things that Link would have liked to wake up to on a Saturday morning in the early days of March. Maybe the lovely smiling face of his best friend, her dyed golden hair spilling over the pillows, sunlight streaming through the blinds in gentle yellow stripes; maybe the smell of scrambled eggs, his mother waiting on him downstairs with a nice breakfast for the two of them to share.

On this particular morning, Link doesn't wake up to either of those things. He awakens in his dark room to the sound of his phone buzzing as well as a _massive_ headache, throbbing like his brain is about to split in two.

It hits him that he's hungover once he finally has the willpower to open his eyes, rubbing his hands over them to try to get them to stay that way. His mouth is dry, and it tastes like absolute hell. He’s hungover. He drank last night. He tries to remember just how much, and when he slowly lurches up and gets a headrush, he realizes that he _can't remember—_ oh, Christ, he drank a _lot_ last night, didn’t he?

Link’s phone is still buzzing, and when he turns to his bedside table, his back cracks. He groans pathetically, squints at the light of his phone when he finally manages to unlock it. It’s around noon right now, and he’s got about sixty-thousand text messages from that best friend he was thinking about earlier, all from this morning, all with a common main idea.

_Text from Zelda ❤️_

_11:03 AM_

**< R u awake yet**

**< Hey**

**< Link**

**< Link wake up pls**

**< Wakey wakey wakey**

**< Hey! Look! Listen!**

**< Link get up**

_11:17 AM_

**< Link I’m serious**

**< If u don't get up I swear to Got**

**< Open your eyes**

**< Open your eyes**

**< L I N K**

_11:31 AM_

**< L**

**< i**

**< n**

**< k**

**< We need to talk about last night**

**< Lanky Boy**

**< Wake up!!!!!**

It goes on into the present, Zelda getting more and more persistent with each text. He blinks hard, tries to get his muscles to cooperate in typing a reply. It feels like his entire body is bruised, and it hurts whenever he swallows.

_12:04 PM_

**Im awajke >**

**Awake >**

**Hello goodmorning what the hell happend > **

 

He gets an immediate response:

 

**< FINALLY YOU TOOK A HUNDRED YEARS**

**< We got drunk**

**Ok yea i noticed >**

**Im dying >**

**< Same I wanna kms**

**< Get over to Koko’s at like 1, I need to show you something**

**K >**

**Zeld everything hurts what dd i do yesteday >**

**< I’ll explain. Just meet me at Koko’s, okay?**

**Ok see u soon >**

Link locks his phone once it’s sent, silencing it begrudgingly. He’ll be happy to get things settled out with Zelda, but the mere idea of going outside, walking all the way to the bakery sounds like absolute torture. He feels nothing but regret and guilt, which is fucked up because he can't even remember what he did to feel guilty about. Eventually, he pushes himself out of bed. He’s in desperate need of a shower.

When Link trudges to the door and grasps the doorknob, he notices something weird— there’s a wide gold ribbon on his left hand, running around and around his palm with a hastily-tied knot above his thumb. Clumsily, he unties it and starts to unwrap it, but there’s a sudden tugging pain at the skin on top, and he meets resistance when he gets to the last of it. He pulls quickly, yanking it off and cursing out loud at the pain of the fabric being ripped from his wound—

His wound? What the  _fuck?_ There’s this big long thin gash on the back of his left hand, going diagonally from his thumb to his ring finger. He throws the bloodied wrap to the ground and just stares at the cut for a second, runs his right index finger over it and winces. It doesn’t look that deep. It’d scabbed over with the ribbon, but he’d just fucking torn the ribbon off like an idiot, so now it’s all raw and red-pink and it hurts like a bastard— how the hell did he even _get_ that? What happened?

He thinks back to the shower as he throws the bloodied cloth away, and he tries to make himself focus on one thing at a time. There’s no use in overwhelming himself. When he opens the door, though, he nearly jumps out of his skin. His mom’s waiting outside his room with her arms crossed and her face twisted into an expression that makes his hair stand on end.

Thus begins the worst and loudest beratement that Link’s ever received in his eighteen years on this earth. His head feels like it’s about to explode with every loud Spanish exclamation about how late he came home and how drunk he was and how he would’ve died out on the street if Zelda hadn’t carried him home in her arms, about how worried she was and how disappointed she is. There's nothing he can do but clench his jaw to try to stop the pounding in his temple, nod and agree and apologize, a raspy prattle of “Si, si, okay, si, no, lo siento, lo siento, si, mamá, okay, lo siento.” He keeps coughing, as it seems that everything in the world is currently stuck in his sore throat, and _that_ makes his mom suspect that he’s been _smoking_ , too, and Link can't even defend himself because he could've done literally anything last night— including smoking— and he’s not about to lie to his _mom._

She seems to give up on it after a while, making him promise that he’ll never drink again in his life, telling him for the millionth time that he needs to start acting like the man of the house since they have no idea when the war will be over, when his dad’s coming home. She thanks God that he’s safe, gives him a kiss on the forehead before retiring to her room to get ready for work. It’s Saturday, so today she’s got the afternoon shift at the dry cleaner’s off of Tabantha street.

Link sighs, scratches his head. He trudges into the bathroom, closes and locks the door, and looks in the mirror to see what practically looks like the corpse of a teenager: his eyes are bloodshot with deep dark circles, his skin is pale and gaunt, and his hair’s an absolute mess. It looks like his cheek is bruised, and so are several small spots along his neck— shit, did he get in a fight or something? He looks like he’s been dead for a century. Everything smells like sweat and liquor. He’s still wearing his whole outfit from last night, the jacket and the weirdly stained shirt and the jeans and fucking Christ, he even slept in his _sneakers._

He turns the shower on, slowly getting his clothes off piece by piece and noting all the other bruises along his limbs and the gross sticky sensation covering his skin before getting in the shower and giving up entirely. He just closes his eyes and lets the hot water run over his face until he can't feel it anymore, can't feel anything but the stinging in his cut. He wants to kill himself. He knows it’s the hangover talking, but he wants to kill himself. God, what the hell was he _doing_ yesterday?

_Memory_

_Hylia High - Mr. Daruk’s classroom_

_Friday, 12:31 PM_

“Most fire signs I’ve met are obnoxious,” says Mipha. “Like Sagittarius. They always get on my nerves.”

Link raises an eyebrow, since _he’s_ a Sagittarius, but he just takes another bite of his apple and tunes out again. He’s gotten better at not letting his friends’ big astrology rants get to him.

“O-oh! Except you, Link, I’m so sorry!” Mipha exclaims when she realizes, and it makes Zelda laugh that nice laugh where her nose crinkles and her head tips forward.

“Yeah, _all_ the fire signs are shit,” Revali says, shrugging coolly as if Link isn’t even at the table. “Personally, I prefer the air. Libras are fun as hell.”

“But _Geminis_ , though,” Mipha rebuts, and Revali ponders it for a second before he nods in agreement. “You can _never_ trust a Gemini.”

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask this: are you two aware that astrology isn't real?” Zelda points out with her hands, “Because I’m starting to wonder if anyone has actually broken you the news. It’s completely unscientific. It means nothing, and judging someone’s personality based on what day they were born is asinine.”

“You think I don't know that?” Revali snickers, “Astrology is about as real as Mrs. Ashai’s new ass. I just love judging people.”

Zelda snorts. “What, the home ec teacher? Do you think she got implants or something?”

“I _know_ she got implants. Anyone with eyes can tell.”

“Well, _I_ think astrology’s real,” Mipha objects, then gives Link an odd look. “In my horoscope, it actually says Sagittarius and Aquarius are really romantically compatible. I thought that was interesting,” she beams. Revali rolls his eyes for some reason.

Link nods along, tries to remember what sign Zelda is. Aries, right? Are Aries and Sagittarius compatible?

His thought process is interrupted when the door opens, and their heads turn at the intrusion; their small group is usually the only one that eats lunch in Mr. Daruk’s room, save for if his son Yunobo ever comes in to talk. They're his favorite students, and they all have his geology class fourth period, so it’s easiest to just stay in and eat at their desks. But it isn't Yunobo— it’s Mipha’s younger brother Sidon, though he hardly looks younger nowadays. When they were kids, Mipha’s height fit her role as a responsible older sister, but it’s hard for her to control _any_ of his antics when she’s five-foot-four and he’s towering over her at six-foot-infinity or whatever.

“Hey, guys! Hey, Mr. Daruk, your beard’s looking great today,” he says cheerily, keeping that confident bounce in his step that athletes all seem to have. Mr. Daruk’s wearing these big steampunk-ish headphones at his desk, so he just nods and waves before he looks back to his computer.

Mipha sees him and immediately reaches into her backpack, pulling out a white paper bag with Sidon’s name on it. “Mimi, I accidentally took the wrong—”

“Here,” she says, handing him the lunch, and he pulls out a lunch with _Mipha’s_ name on it, and he tosses it over to the table, and the paper tears. “C’mon— dude, just hand it to me like a normal person next time.”

“Sorry,” he laughs, scratches the back of his neck. His outfit’s like a caricature of a California surfer, wearing a striped tank top with a shark-tooth necklace and summer board shorts even when it’s the middle of March. He has really nice arms, and he’s quite handsome when he smiles. “I ate the egg sandwich already, so you can have mine.”

“Are you serious? You couldn't even wait to get yours?” Mipha groans, reaching into Sidon’s lunch to fish out a sandwich before he walks to the table, reaches over Revali to grab the bag.

“I was hungry! What can I say?” Sidon then notices Link, and he grins wide. “Wow, it’s Link! How are you? That shirt looks really cool.”

Link looks down, sort of forgetting what he has on— it’s just a blue t-shirt with a bunch of white triangles on it, but he gives Sidon a smile of gratitude anyways.

“You coming to the water polo match tonight? We’re up against Hateno Tech, and we’re gonna fuckin’ demolish ‘em,” he says enthusiastically. Hylia High has sort of a rivalry with Hateno Tech when it comes to sports. “You aren't gonna wanna miss it, I swear. Plus,” and he glances at Mr. Daruk for a second, who’s still got headphones on, “Yunobo’s parents are going out of town for the weekend. He’s throwing this _huge_ party at his house after the game.”

Link shrugs, looks to Zelda. They were thinking about making plans together for tonight, seeing a movie or something. Zelda’s just typing something on her phone.

“Well, I hope you decide to show up. See ya!” Sidon gives Mipha a pat on the head, much to her frustration, and then promptly leaves.

There’s only a short pause after that, and then Revali breaks it with, “Okay, for real, would you fuck Mipha’s brother?”

Link chokes, and Zelda laughs so hard she drops her phone on her desk. “Why the hell would you _ask_ that?” She points to Mipha, who looks _extremely_ tired.

“Why not? She knows already. Mipha, you know your brother is hot as shit, right?”

Mipha gives him a death glare, sighs and reaches into her bag. She pulls out a pair of earbuds, tucking them past the sides of her face and into her red hijab. “You know what? Go ahead. I’m not even listening. I hate you so much sometimes.” She plugs them into her phone, and that’s the end of it.

“I’m serious,” Revali says, and that’s when the bell rings. Mipha takes the visual queue, gets up once they grab their backpacks from the floor, and Link tosses his apple core into the trash can as they leave the classroom. “Well, I mean, I’m definitely above banging a _junior_ , but, like. If he was a senior, would you?”

“No,” Zelda says, and Link almost sighs out of relief. Everyone in the hallway is buzzing, indifferently chattering and milling around. It’s one of those Friday afternoons where nobody cares about anything except getting out. “He’s cute, but c’mon. I’m not fucking my friend’s brother.”

“Whatever. Are you going to Yunobo’s tonight? It’ll probably be a bunch of assholes from the swim team, but I hear Mr. Daruk is actually kinda loaded, and his house is _huge_.”

Link wants to ask exactly how it’s possible that a public school teacher is loaded, but Zelda just answers with, “People better not trash the place. Mr. Daruk is the best. Can you give us a ride?”

There are two things about that sentence that excite Link: one is that Zelda’s implying that they're going together, and the other is the prospect of getting a ride from Revali in his blue Thunderbird, always spotless, always topless, always going over the speed limit. He’s literally had _dreams_ about owning that car.

But Revali actually laughs at that, haughty and condescending, tossing his shiny black braids. “Hm… Absolutely not.”

“Don’t be a dick, man.”

“Okay, I’m _not_ being a dick, I just _know_ Link’s gonna be eating fucking chili fries tonight or some shit, and he’ll spill them all over the seat. I just know these kinds of things. Find another way.”

Zelda sighs, looks to Link and chuckles defeatedly. Her eyes are so goddamn green that it makes him want to die sometimes. “Wanna take the train?”

He nods, gives her a thumbs-up. Zelda and Revali have a short conversation about those weird weeaboo freshmen who despise their entire friend group, and then Link spends the entirety of sixth period thinking about owning a nice car, taking Zelda for a ride, her hair whipping in the wind as they drive past the edge of the world. Driving somewhere wild and free with wide grassy plains as green as her irises, somewhere no one can find them.

 

_Present_

Much to his chagrin, Link still feels like utter fuck-all after getting out of the shower— clean fuck-all, but fuck-all nonetheless. He wants nothing more than to just sleep the rest of the day away, but it’s already half past twelve, so he gets dressed and searches in the clutter of his room for the jeans he’d worn yesterday. His wallet is thankfully still in the front pocket, but it seems lighter. He checks it thoroughly, and his debit card’s safe, and so is his license and his school ID and all the crumpled cash he keeps on him— strangely, there seems to be _more_ cash than what he’d started with, which is quite unsettling. That means he earned money. That means last night he’d exchanged goods, and/or _services_ , for money.

He pushes the garish thought down, telling himself he must’ve lost something unimportant yesterday, a wad of old receipts or some coupons or whatever. He throws the wallet in his backpack and stops in the bathroom to pull a wad of gauze out of an old first aid kit to wrap around the cut on his hand before he heads out, watching his mom’s car pull out of their parking spot and ease out of the complex’s lot just as he makes it down the stairs to the concrete.

When he steps out from under the roofing, the sunlight feels like someone’s shining a trillion-watt flashlight directly into his eyes, and he physically winces and steps back, pulling his hood up like a goddamn vampire. He checks the time on his phone, takes a deep breath and steps out into the sun again. The thought of Zelda’s green eyes is the only thing that keeps his aching legs from running home and giving out for hours, instead making the long trek through the suburbs to Koko’s bakery.

It takes him much longer to get downtown than it usually does. The bakery is the first shop on the street when he turns the corner into Kakariko Village, a busy Japanese community with a nice residential area and a long row of nice stores in the shopping district. He practically spots Zelda from a mile away, sitting at a table just outside the bakery’s entrance underneath a sun umbrella with a cup of coffee and about five or six bottles of water. She’s wearing these giant round sunglasses and a wide-brimmed blue sunhat. He knows it’s just because she feels as shitty as he does, but she manages to make it look like she’s a celebrity trying to hide her identity or something.

“Hi,” Link says, takes his hood off and puts his hands down on the side of the table. Zelda looks up from her phone, looks at him for about half of a second before she busts out laughing.

“You look awful,” she chuckles, and her voice is raspy. “I bought a bunch of waters. Drink some. I think you’re about to shrivel up and die.”

“Well, how are _you_ holding up?” Link asks, sits down across from her and takes her advice, opening a cold bottle of water and downing half of it in one sip. It feels like it’s the first drink he’s had in ages, but his stomach lurches at the sudden intrusion. If he throws up at this fucking coffee shop, Link might actually hang himself.

Zelda takes off her glasses, and she looks just as bad as he does— there’s more red in her eyes than green. “I was so disoriented this morning that when my dad asked where I went last night, I told him I went to church. I legitimately told him that I had gone to church on a Friday night. How do you _think_ I’m holding up?”

Link laughs, going into another coughing fit before deciding to finish the water bottle.

Zelda just shakes her head and sips her coffee. Then she asks, “How much do you remember from last night?”

“Like, nothing. I’m wracking my head, and everything's all fuzzy. It feels really messed up.”

“I remember a general rundown, but there are a lot of gaps, and I can't recall many details— but I went through my camera roll this morning, and it turns out I took a ton of pictures last night,” she says, bringing up her album on her phone. Link cranes his sore neck over, but she hesitantly pulls the screen away. “Fair warning: there’s some pretty crazy stuff on here.”

“How crazy?”

“... You’ll see. Just, tell me if any of this jogs your memory,” Zelda states, then turns up the brightness on her phone. She shows Link the first picture. It’s a front-camera photo of Zelda, Link, and a girl with giant blonde hair and crazy makeup on in front of a huge house: Zelda’s grinning, the blonde girl is hugging Link, and Link looks _incredibly_ uncomfortable.

_Memory_

_Yunobo’s house_

_Friday, 10:27 PM_

Once they arrive from the long train ride northeast, the party reminds Link of a standup routine he’d seen once: Everyone he had ever met is there, and they’re all drinking like it’s the end of the world. People are drinking like it’s the Civil War and a doctor’s coming to saw their legs off. He sees kids from the water polo team with red Solo cups and beer bottles, girls from Zelda’s student council with cans of things that he doesn’t even recognize. There are tall, pretty girls with copper skin and big red hair in talkative groups— they must be from that private all-girls school on the western part of town, Naboris Prep. There’s a band playing in the garage with a big mob of people cheering them on, and he recognizes the singer-slash-guitarist as Kass, that one nice band kid who always has an accordion strapped to his back whenever he sees him. Revali’s Thunderbird is parked right out front.

“God damn,” says Zelda, looking at him and laughing nervously. She keeps glancing at one of the groups of Naboris girls, then just one girl, a stern-looking one in a crop top with strong arms and blue lipstick. “That’s a lot of people.”

“Yeah— who’s that?”

“Who?”

“The girl you're looking at. The pretty one.”

“O-oh. That’s Urbosa Ahzar.” She keeps walking up the driveway, and the band gets louder and louder as he paces to catch up with her through the crowd. “She’s… _wow_. I’ve only ever seen pictures of her,” she sighs, then starts to straighten out her little white camisole that shows her midriff, pulling at the gold sash worn like a belt in the loops of her baggy ripped jeans. Zelda is probably the most fashionable person Link knows. Link would totally wear that outfit if he had the guts. “She has, like, thousands of followers on Instagram.”

“What, do you _like_ her or something?” Link jokes, expecting her to shut him down, but Zelda just goes red and starts giggling, and his heart drops in an instant.

“Do you think I should just go talk to her?” She bubbles, then looks around in the other direction before he can even respond. She points at a group of people sitting on the front steps with an ice bucket full of beer cans. “That girl over there has a huge crush on you. I’m gonna call her over. Maybe you can get lucky.”

“Wh— wait, Zelda, I don’t—”

“Hey, Cotera!” She yells, and it’s too late. A blonde girl’s head perks up, and she waves excitedly and stumbles over to them, obviously tipsy. She’s cute and tall and covered in glitter, and she smells sickly sweet like nightshade, but she’s nowhere _near_ Link’s type.

“Hiiii,” she slurs, and he realizes just how much _makeup_ she’s wearing— she’s got bright purple eyeshadow and deep red lipstick, and she even has little rhinestones glued across her cheeks that sparkle like the rest of her. “Link, I didn't think you’d show up! I _never_ see you at parties or anything— why don’t you get _out_ more often, sweetheart?”

“I... dunno,” he says, feels himself start to blush and wishes he were anywhere else. Zelda’s got her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh. God, he’s so fucking awkward— it’s basically impossible for him to force himself to talk like this. “I-I… y— uh... Nice shirt,” he manages, pointing at the shimmery white scrap of fabric across her chest.

Cotera laughs this huge, showy, fake-sounding laugh, resting a manicured hand on his shoulder. “I made this shirt myself! I’m taking sewing classes. I wanna make clothes for a living. I fix ‘em, too— tell me if you ever rip something, alright, handsome? Or if you need something altered. I’ll sew it right up for you. At a discounted price.” She winks a massive false eyelash at him, and he just nods and laughs like an idiot.

“C’mon, let’s take a picture together,” says Zelda, taking out her phone, and Link reluctantly huddles in with the two of them. Cotera keeps laughing and nearly tripping over her own feet. He’s glad that him and Zelda decided not to drink tonight.

_Present_

“... Hold on,” says Link.

“What?”

“Okay, I remember the beginning when I was sober. I just. Wait, when did we get drunk? Weren’t we not gonna get drunk?”

“Well, yeah, at first. Look at how well _that_ turned out,” she says, swiping left to show him the next picture: It’s Link, sitting sober and alone at a table surrounded by drunk partygoers dancing and having fun. He’s holding a can of Diet Coke.

_Memory_

_Yunobo’s House - Dining room_

_Friday, 11:03 PM_

Link considers himself a pretty simple person. He likes cooking, fencing, sleeping, his friends, and pretty clothes. He dislikes talking, drinking, being forced into pressurized situations, and large crowds.

Zelda’s gone off to talk to that Urbosa girl after snapping a picture of him all lonely and sad by himself. He can't find Yunobo or Revali anywhere, and Mipha ran off upstairs with some girl from Hateno Tech, so he’s just staying put and drinking a soda. Drunk people from his school keep coming up to him and trying to talk— or trying to _hit_ on him, and most of the time he can't even tell which is which— but it’s hard to understand anything over the chatter and the loud music, so there’s never any real conversations. He’s just stuck there.

Needless to say, Link desperately wishes he’d just stayed home.

That’s why it’s such a relief when Sidon sees him, calling his name and taking a seat next to him. “Hey, Link! Nice shirt,” he says, and his voice is clear and loud. It’s still the same t-shirt he was wearing to school today. Sidon is always very sweet to him.

Link just gives him a tired smile. Sidon’s holding a stack of plastic shot glasses and an industrial-size glass bottle of tequila, and some juniors are tailing him, almost waiting for him to get back up.

“Sidon, you did _so_ good in today’s game,” says a girl with bleached white hair tied in a bun. “We really showed Hateno who’s boss!”

“That goal you scored was  _a_ _mazing,”_ agrees a girl who looks like she could be Cotera’s sister.

“You’re so _hot,”_ sighs a guy from his woodshop class with a headband and an earring.

Sidon just laughs like it’s nothing. “Thank you, but could you all give me a minute? I need to talk to Link.”

The group sighs in disappointment, but they all disperse without question, telling others to leave Sidon alone as well. It’s pretty impressive how much influence Sidon has over the underclassmen, being a star athlete and the sibling of a valedictorian and all. And his looks probably don’t hurt, either.

“You look really down, man,” Sidon says, leaning in a bit too close so that he doesn't have to shout. “Is something bothering you?”

Link doesn't quite feel close enough to Sidon to start talking, and he isn't about to just come out and say, “ _Yeah, I’m deeply in love with my best friend, and she’s hitting on someone else right now,”_ so he just shakes his head and takes a sip of his soda. He holds up the can to offer some to Sidon for manners’ sake, but Sidon just busts out laughing.

“Are you seriously sober right now?” He snickers, and his teeth look white and sharp up close. Link nods hesitantly, and Sidon sets out one of the shot glasses on the table. “Well, that’s your problem right there!”

Link starts to speak, but Sidon cuts him off before he can protest, putting a wide hand on his shoulder. “Dude, you have a ton of pressure on you right now. There’s the AP tests coming up, and then Prom next weekend, and then that big fencing tourney in Lurelin, right?”

Link nods again, but doesn't know how Sidon knew he’s on the fencing team. Maybe Mipha told him.

“Yeah, I thought so. Link, I think you need a break— you certainly _deserve_ one, after all you’ve been doing for Zelda and the student council and everything. You’re pretty great, you know that? You do so much for other people.” Sidon leans in uncomfortably close and gives him a fond look, his brown eyes warm and sincere. He smells like chlorine and vape flavoring. “It’s time you do something for _yourself_ for a change.”

Link’s almost ready to give in at that point, but he’s still reluctant. Last time he’d checked— in eighth grade at a fucked-up cast party for Grease, to be exact— alcohol tasted awful, and he was a total lightweight. There’s no telling what would happen if he got drunk in a huge crowd like this.

He must be making a face— Sidon starts laughing again, setting out a few more glasses. “Still need a little more encouragement, huh? Here. I’ll give you…” He starts to pull something out of the pocket of his board shorts, “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you can do five shots.”

“Jesus Christ,” Link says out loud. Five goddamn shots of tequila? Shit, fifty bucks is fifty bucks, but isn’t that enough to give someone alcohol poisoning?

“I’m serious,” Sidon insists, taking out his wallet and showing him two twenties and a ten dollar bill. “All or nothing.”

Link has to think about it a bit more. He scans his surroundings; Sidon’s fanclub seems to be huddled around the table, watching the two of them. The only people he recognizes in the living room are mere acquaintances, kids he knows from classes. Zelda’s nowhere to be seen. Link takes a deep breath, looks at Sidon and nods decidedly.

Sidon lets out a cheer, and it’s soon echoed in the group around them. “Now _that’s_ the spirit of a hero!” He uncaps the bottle and starts to fill the glasses he’d set on the table, spilling more and more with each cup— by the time he pours the last shot, there’s a substantial amount of tequila pooling on the linen tablecloth. “C’mon, Link, show us what you’re made of.”

Link stands up shakily, and his heart is suddenly pounding when he picks up the shot glass. He tries to convince himself that it’ll taste like water, gives Sidon a worried glance, then thinks about Zelda for a split moment before closing his eyes and knocking the drink back.

There’s an immediate reaction from the people around him, scattered encouragements before he can even recognize the taste. And then it registers on his tongue, and it’s just absolutely _disgusting._  He can feel it burning his mouth and running down his throat, and fucking hell, it tastes like a fucking _cleaning product_ or something. He gags as it goes down, feels the hair raise on his neck and his arms; he then holds his hand over his mouth and drops the cup, leaning over the table in defeat, and it hurts to breathe. He hears Sidon start laughing again.

Without looking up, he takes the second glass and drinks it, tosses the cup down, takes the third— by then, his throat feels like it’s on fire, his legs are shaking, and he wants a drink of water more than anything else in the world, but so many people are _watching_ and he’s not about to go and show any weakness to the public. He’s nauseous and dizzy when he picks up the fourth shot, and that’s when he fully realizes that the group around the table has grown by at least twenty people, hollering and chanting and filming with their flash on.

Sidon looks oddly nervous, and it looks like he’s about to say something before a gorgeous girl with a Naboris sweatshirt runs up to him and taps his shoulder. “Hey— you’re Sidon Zuraaba, huh? From Hylia?” She asks all excited, and he just nods and chuckles uncomfortably. “Holy shit! My friend said you were the best she ever had! I just wanna ask if—”

“Sorry, but could you give me one second? I’m in the middle of something,” he explains, and the girl huffs and joins the crowd. Sidon chews his lip, runs his hand through his curly black clipper cut, puts a hand on Link’s shoulder and leans in again.  Everything starts to sound distant. “H-hey, Link, I wasn't really thinking before— five is a _lot_ of alcohol, y’know? You really don’t have to drink _all_ of it, I just—”

He gets a sudden surge of courage. In that moment, Link wants fifty dollars. Link just really fucking wants fifty dollars.

So he nods at Sidon, looks him dead in the eyes as he drinks the fourth shot, tries to swallow it quick enough so that he can't taste it. Of course he tastes it anyways, and he has to clench his eyes shut and force it down his throat. Everyone goes crazy, and a few people start chanting his name, and he hears a familiar voice from the back—

“What the fuck— is Link doing  _shots?”_ Revali pushes his through the crowd holding what looks to be a glass of wine, and Link meets his eye and laughs woozily, almost out of relief. “Oh my _god!_ How many have you done?”

Link holds out a finger to him and signs, “ _One moment, please_.” He manages to close his fist around the last shot on the table, shuts his eyes tight and drinks it as if it’s poison and he’s ending his own life. He swallows, shudders, looks at Revali and holds out five fingers.

The crowd _explodes_ , and Sidon grabs his wrist and hoists his hand in the air like he’d won a boxing match as everyone hollers and whoops and claps and takes pictures of the two of them. Link’s knees are weak, and he feels like he’s about to throw up when he takes the money and shoves it in his wallet, but he manages to keep everything down and just laugh at himself for this. At least he doesn't feel crazy or stupid or anything. And even if the liquor ends up just making him sick and sluggish, at least he’ll have fifty dollars. Maybe he’ll just lay low tonight, find an empty room and sleep. That sounds nice.

_Present_

_“Sidon_ made me drink,” he realizes. “I drank f—”

“Five shots of tequila. It was on everybody’s Snapchat story. Link, that’s absolutely fucking insane. Why did you _do_ that?”

He feels his face flush, looks down at the table and scratches at the wood with his fingernail. “... He gave me fifty dollars,” Link mutters. “I-I thought of it like a challenge or something.”

And Zelda tries desperately to keep from laughing, putting her face in her hand and nearly letting her hair fall into her coffee. “Oh my god.”

“Shut up,” he snickers, shaking his head, “S’not like _you_ stayed sober, c’mon. What did you do?”

“A bunch of gross cocktails. Wait, here, look at this, it’s hilarious—” She pulls up the next photo, and it shows a somewhat blurry picture of an extremely enthusiastic crowd surrounding Link in a dark room. Link’s talking on a phone with a bright pink case.

_Memory_

_Yunobo’s house - Hallway_

_Friday, 11:19 PM_

The alcohol actually kicks in about fifteen minutes later, and Link feels better than he has in his entire fucking life. Everything is suddenly dizzy and smooth and numb, and he just wants to start laughing at everything, at _everyone_ — whatever song’s playing over the speakers is _incredible_ , and so is the one that the band’s playing in the garage, all of the music and yelling and moving blending together. Link’s just stumbling through a busy section of the house, looking through every doorway for someone to talk to because he suddenly feels the need to talk _._ For the first time in what feels like a million years, Link actually _wants_ to talk. He needs to talk to somebody about _everything_ , about how he doesn't feel like he’s even real half the time, how he doesn't want to join the military like his dad, how he doesn't think he’s a boy _or_ a girl, how he loves being with his friend Zelda more than anything in the world—

And then he throws open a door on his right, and there’s _Zelda._ It's a room with a TV and a bunch of kids in it— _the TV room,_ Link puts together, feeling like a genius. There’s a ton of people he recognizes in here, there’s Zelda, there’s Yunobo, there’s Mipha, there’s Paya, there’s Harth— _everybody’s_ here. There’s even that one stern girl with the blue lipstick from the driveway earlier; up close, she might be one of the most beautiful girls he’s ever seen in his life. He’s so relieved and happy that he actually tears up a little. Teba’s standing up in front of the TV, explaining a drinking game.

“It’s called Molotov Cocktail,” Teba says authoritatively. He’s holding either a Gamecube or Nintendo 64 controller. Whichever one only has two of the little grippy things at the end— y’know, the things you hold onto. The prongs? Fuck, whatever. “Four people play a round of Bomberman Jetters in Battle Mode. The loser has to take a shot. Second and third place do a one-on-one round, and the winner gets to dare the loser of _that_ one to do anything they want—”

Link yells, “Zelda!” and the crowd’s attention immediately shifts away from Teba to stare at him.

There’s a weird moment where everyone's eyes are on him. But then, everybody goes, “ _Eyyy, Link!”_ and they start to usher him in, asking him if he likes the party so far, if he’s having a good time. Teba scoffs, dropping the controller and throwing his hands up.

Zelda smiles big when she sees him, and she taps the stern girl on the shoulder with one hand, the other gripping a red solo cup. Some of her drink sloshes out onto the carpet when the two make their way over to him, staining it neon pink.

“Urbosa, this is Link!” Zelda beams. Urbosa nods down at him with a little smirk, and Link’s sure he’ll never forget that name again. Urbosa is _stunning._ Urbosa’s got the greatest-looking arms he’s ever seen. Urbosa could _definitely_ give Sidon a run for his money in terms of great arms and great looks and abnormal-but-oddly-fitting tallness. Maybe he should introduce them to each other.

“It’s a pleasure, Link. Zelda’s been talking about you all night,” she says in a deep, smooth voice, and Zelda immediately giggles and shushes her, nudging her elbow into Urbosa’s side and spilling even more of her drink. “You must be one hell of a guy to have a girl like _this_ under your spell.”

Zelda giggles some more in a way that Link’s never heard before, and her face is _bright_ red. Is she drunk too? He honestly hopes so. He wants her to feel as good as he does right now. “Urbosa’s a really, _really_ big deal at Naboris,” she says, to which Urbosa just chuckles, shakes her head. “C’mon, don’t be humble! You are! You’re practically _royalty,_ I swear.”

“Are you student body president like Zelda?” Link reasons, stunned at the fact that he could even remember the term. His words seem pulled from his mouth, as if he’s got no control.

Urbosa tries to speak, but Zelda cuts her off with, “No, no, that’s her little cousin Riju. Urbosa pretty much oversees the entire athletics program for the school. _And_ she’s the football captain.”

“Oh, wow— you should tot’ly get with my friend Sidon! He’s upstairs and he’s big and likes sports too,” Link blurts out. He starts laughing at himself as soon as he says it because of how plain stupid it was for him to say that, but for God knows why, Zelda and Urbosa start to laugh along with him.

“Maybe I will,” Urbosa snickers, pinching Link’s cheek. Her hand is warm and her grip is firm. “I’m gonna stick around here for now, though. Somebody has to help Teba get his game set up.”

As soon as she lets go and walks away, back to the group, Zelda gives Link a wide-eyed look that can only mean ‘ _holy shit, dude’._

“Her arms are crazy,” Link offers. He ends up getting a bit taken aback by just how _wonderful_ Zelda looks in her white camisole and yellow sash and saggy blue jeans, her hair all pushed back with a simple blue headband. He stares into her eyes like there’s a puzzle to be unlocked, and the noise from Mario Sunshine that chimes whenever you’re near a Shine Sprite starts playing in the back of his head. He doesn’t question it. “She's so cool it’s goddamn wild,” he forces out, maybe talking about Urbosa, maybe not. “Gorgeous.”

“She's _incredible,_ ” she sighs, taking a gulp of her drink before holding it out to Link. “Want some? Urbosa made it for me. Wait, no— Urbosa made me a Noble Pursuit. I drank... two of those? Yeah, two. _Mipha_ made me this one. I’m,” she laughs giddily, “I’m _pretty_ drunk right now.”

“What is it?”

“A Fairy Tonic,” she says proudly, and Link takes the cup and holds it to his face. Sure, he could go for another drink. “It’s strawberry vodka and pink Pixie Sticks.”

The Fairy Tonic smells like acetone mixed with cotton candy. He takes a small sip, and it goes down surprisingly easy, like fruit punch. “S’good,” he says, hiccuping, and Zelda laughs so sweetly when she takes it back that his heart feels like it’ll leap out of his chest. “I feel really great right now. Do you feel great? ‘Cause _I_ feel, I mean, _wrow._ ”

“You’re awfully chatty,” she notes. “Are you like this every time you drink?”

“I dunno. Never really drank before.” Even at that fucked up cast party, he’d only had a single shot of pineapple Malibu mixed with a cup of Snapple. “Feels good. Wanna talk about my feelings.”

“Well, by all means, go ahead,” Zelda beams. “I love when you open up. I’m all ears.”

Link likes the way that the word _love_ sounds in her voice. He makes a correlation, blushing, smiling to himself. “You have big ears.”

“Huh?”

Oh, fuck. He realizes he’d said it out loud. “They’re _cute_ ,” he amends, panicking, and the fucking Mario Sunshine chimes keep getting louder and louder. “They’re really, really cute, and _I_ have big ears too, so don’t feel bad about it, please! I’m sorry I said it like that! Really sorry!”

Zelda simply laughs again, putting a hand on his shoulder, stumbling slightly. “You _do_ have big ears. You know what that means, right?”

“What does it mean?”

She gives him a strange look, leaning in, whispering harshly, “It means—”

“Link!” Paya suddenly appears between them, thrusting a phone against his ear. She looks drunk, too. He hopes everybody’s drunk. “Link, are you good at coming up with funny stuff? I need you to say something really funny right now.”

Link squints at her, hears ringing on the other end of the line. “... Huh?”

Paya elaborates with, “Just, just say the dumbest joke you can think of.”

“Who’s on the phone?” Link asks sluggishly.

“Mr. Daruk,” Paya says, putting the phone on speaker. Link freezes. “We’re prank-calling him. Here— he’s picking up.”

“Wait, wait, no, no, I don’t wanna—”

“Hello?” says Mr. Daruk’s gruff voice from the other end of the line. The room falls into a hush. Over on the couch, Link can see Yunobo nearly biting his nails off.

“... Hello, sir,” Link says in a weird accent that isn't specific to any country, “I’m… is your refrigerator running?” He asks, and the crowd immediately starts laughing, so he shushes them so he can concentrate. Zelda pulls out her phone, turning the flash on, ready to take a picture or a video or something.

“Oh, _man,_ ” Mr. Daruk laughs, and Link realizes that he doesn’t have a punchline. “Who is this?”

“Then you better go _fuck_ it.” Link ends the call.

Everybody loses their fucking minds.

_Present_

“Oh, no,” says Link.

“Oh, yes,” says Zelda

“But I— I didn’t even— to a _teacher_ , I just—” he keeps sputtering, but Zelda seems to have moved on; she swipes again on her phone, showing a picture of him on a fucking stage next to Kass with his guitar, holding a microphone and passionately singing something. His stomach drops through the floor. “Oh, God, no,” says Link.

“Oh, God, _yes,”_ says Zelda.

_Memory_

_Yunobo’s house - Garage_

_Friday, 11:46 PM_

Link and Zelda were eventually pulled from the confines of the TV room and into the garage by the alluring sound of the song “September” by Earth Wind & Fire. By this point, they had both lost several rounds of Bomberman Jetters, refusing to take the penalty shots out of technicalities like “ _He’s a lightweight”_ or “ _She didn’t know the controls”_ or “ _He already did five shots of tequila, do you want him to fucking die?”_

When they get there, everyone is going crazy, and the music is really loud, and Link gets this immediate boost in his chest like he loves every single person in this crowded goddamn garage. The song’s still playing by the time they push their way to the front where people are dancing, and then they take hands, and they start to dance.

When she dances, Zelda smiles and laughs in a way that Link feels like he hasn’t seen in forever, stumbling over her own two feet and scuffing up her nice white sneakers. Zelda’s always overworking herself. She does so much for the sake of other people that she forgets to have fun. Link sort of does that, too. A lot of people look to them at school.

He realizes he's spacing out while simultaneously twirling Zelda to one of his favorite songs, and he laughs out loud, immediately letting go of his entire thought process and pulling her in close as the crowd pushes against them. The feeling of her skin against his arms is almost _electric_. The chiming in his ears grows to a crescendo. He wants people to look at them now, to see how good of a dancer Zelda is, to see them together and realize that good things really do still exist in this world.

At some point, Kass notices them, and Link takes an arm off Zelda’s shoulder to wave at him furiously. He nods and smiles, and he can't really do anything else because he's singing, but once the song’s over, he nods to this tall kid in the back holding a pair of maracas and steps off the edge of the makeshift wooden stage-ish platform to get in close to Link. The girl on the keyboard looks like she's about six years old, but Link doesn’t question it. “You look like you’re having a good time, Link,” Kass grins, and all the feather-clips in his bushy hair look more handsome on him than usual. “Do you wanna come up and sing?”

Link gasps. _God_ , yes, he wants to sing. He likes singing. He sings at home all the time, especially when he cooks for him and his mom. “Who, _me?”_ he asks, and Kass laughs hard for some reason.

“Yeah, you,” he holds his hand out, and Link takes it, shooting an excited smile at Zelda as he stumbles up to where all the amps and cords and equipment are. “We’re gonna do a song next,” Kass says, and then he says the name of the song, and Link completely misses it.

“Sorry, what song?”

“‘Smooth,’ by Santana,” Kass repeats himself, and Link gasps again. That’s _hilarious_. Him and Zelda love to make fun of that song.

What comes out of Link’s mouth, though, is, “I _love_ that song,” so Kass gives him a pat on the back and hands him the mic before fixing the strap of his guitar.

Without any further warning, the drummer pounds out those iconic opening beats, and Kass starts to lay down that sick fucking riff, and everyone’s looking at Link and cheering because everybody at this school knows him through Zelda, and Zelda’s taking more pictures of him, so he smiles and bangs his head and stamps his feet in elation. People are chanting his name by the time the guitar settles down, and he comes in with perfect timing when the lyrics start up, his heart hammering as he belts out, “ _Man, it’s a hot one—”_

_Present_

“No, no, no, no, _no,”_ Link groans, putting his face in his hands before folding his arms and lurching over the tiny café table. “No, no, _God._  I did that. I fucking did that.”

“You sure did.”

“In front of _people.”_

“A whole lot of people,” Zelda muses. “I think Traysi posted a video of it, if you want to see—”

“For the love of _fuck_ , please don’t show me,” he clenches his eyes shut, wondering what kind of cruel god would let this happen. Link is a fucking _awful_ singer, and he _hates_ being the center of attention like that— at this point, he's ready to swear off drinking for the rest of his life. He feels his throat start to tighten up like he’ll be sick. “This is the worst shit in the entire world. Oh, God. Oh my _God._ ”

“I’m…” Zelda picks her hand up off the table, placing it hesitantly on Link’s shoulder. It makes him perk his head up a little. “I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, no one was laughing _at_ you. It made everyone genuinely happy to see you having fun like that. Does that help?”

Link looks up at her. She looks genuinely apologetic. “I mean, a little,” he shrugs, laying his chin on his crossed arms. He still never wants to show his face at school again. “Did I do anything else like that?”

“... Kind of?” Zelda says, swiping back and forth a few times. “Are you sure you want to see?”

It’s best to rip the bandaid off quickly instead of hesitating. Link clears his throat and defiantly says, “Show me.” When he sits up, his back cracks painfully, and he spits out, “ _Fuck_ ,” at a reasonable volume. A few people in the café turn around and look at him and Zelda, and he slouches back over the table in shame as she shows him her phone. God, he wants to die so bad.

“There's a bit of a gap between this one and the last one,” she says. “Look.” She shows him a picture of—

Oh, Jesus fucking _Christ_. It’s a flash photo of a freshman with a Naruto headband lunging at Link with a kitchen knife, a crowd of people cheering in a ring around them. Link’s dodging the advance with a feral grin on his face. A singular bunch of bananas hangs menacingly in midair in the top right corner of the photo above Link’s head.

_Memory_

_Yunobo’s house - Kitchen_

_Saturday, 12:29 AM_

“I am so fucking _sick_ and _tired_ of this school,” yells the weeaboo freshman, their hair in a ponytail and their red tank top tucked into their belt. Their rant has drawn quite a big crowd into the kitchen, Link and Zelda included. It’s obvious that they’re fairly drunk; then again, _everyone’s_ fairly drunk at this point. “This— this _bullshit_ social hierarchy, where the only people anybody gives a _shit_ about is the student council. _Fuck_ the student council!”

Link’s trying desperately not to laugh. He nudges Zelda with his elbow to try and get her to start filming, but he finds that she’s already got her phone out by the time he looks over.

“You’ve only gone here since fuckin’ August,” heckles a voice that sounds suspiciously like Teba’s, and laughter rips through the audience. Link shoves his hand over his mouth. Zelda’s camera flashes.

The freshman stomps their foot down on the tile floor and looks for the perpetrator. “Yeah, and I can _already_ tell how fucked up this system is. All you guys care about is whatever the hell the goddamn president and her dumbass secretary do.”

“That’s _me,”_ Link whispers loudly to Zelda, as he happens to be the dumbass secretary, and Zelda shushes him. People say mean shit about the student council all the time. They’re pretty much impervious to it at this point.

“Lemme just say it straight up: Link Bosque is a fuckin’ stupid little bitch,” they yell.

Link goes, “Y _eah!_ ” and applauds, making the people around him laugh.

“And Zelda de la Corona?” they continue, and Link’s smile falls. “Zelda de la Corona is an ugly slut who needs to stop acting like she’s some innocent fuckin’ princess.”

Zelda laughs so hard that she almost drops her phone. Link gets so fucking angry that he sees red. He shoves his way through the crowd and into the middle of the circle before people can even react. When he’s right in front of the motherfucker, there’s a split moment where he realizes that he’s seen this little rat-bastard before; they’re one of the better members of the fencing team. He isn’t really friends with anyone on the fencing team. They’re all kinda weird. Link just likes to fence.

That’s the last thought he has before he winds up with his left arm and punches them across the jaw.

Everything around him erupts into chaos as people start reacting and filming and rushing to the other side to get a closer look— the bastard stumbles back against a counter, hitting their head on a cupboard. They get a good look at Link, and they go, “It’s _you,”_ with this malicious tone of voice that sounds almost _hilarious_ coming out of the mouth of somebody who looks like they’re approximately five feet tall. With one hand, they push up their headband with the metal spiral engraved in the front. With the other, they swiftly pull a fucking _knife_ out of a really conveniently placed wooden knife block. “Come the _fuck_ at me,” they yell shrilly, squaring up with an agility that no drunk teenager should ever possess.

The only thing Link sees in the hellscape around them is Zelda’s silhouette against the harsh lights. She’s pushed her way to the front of the crowd, still holding her phone up. “ _Fuck ‘em up!_ ” she yells, and some primal instinct in Link’s body urges him onward, his heart pounding. He doesn’t care that they have a knife and he doesn’t. He doesn’t care that people are watching— hell, he _wants_ them to watch. Watch him as he—

_12:33 AM_

“ _Link!”_ somebody screams, and Link stumbles back into his own body and realizes that he’s got bunch of bananas in his right hand, a bloody kitchen knife in his left, and an unconscious weeaboo freshman at his feet. He’s out of breath and covered in sweat, and there’s blood all over his left hand, but there’s no pain. It’s all numb. Everybody’s staring at him. Oh, shit. Oh, fucking shit.

He stares down. They don’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere, but they _are_ wearing a red shirt. There are so many fucking witnesses, and there’s only one question to ask. His mind is so fucking dizzy. It’s like the framerate of the world just went down.

“... Did I,” Link says hoarsely, finding that his voice seems far away, hardly audible over his own pulse in his ears. “Did I stab....?”

And there’s this immediate response of _laughter_ amidst the crowd, people cheering and hollering, and _Zelda_ runs up and throws her arms around him, clumsily prying the knife and the bananas out of his hands and putting them on a marble counter. “He hit you bad, and then he slashed your hand up, and then you got the knife out of his hands, and then you fucking— you _knocked_ that fucker  _out,"_  she laughs incredulously, leading him over to the sink while he’s still in a trance.

“H… _how?_ ”

“What do you mean, how?” She turns the faucet on and puts his hand under it. Mipha runs up and gives Link a pat on the back and a kiss on the cheek, then runs away before he can even react in any way. “You just did it.”

“I blacked out.” Once the blood starts to wash away, he can make out where he’d been cut. Holy _fuck,_ that’s a lot of blood. How does he not feel pain on the back of his hand right now? “I blacked out,” he says louder, just to make it official. “You sure I didn’t... stab…?”

“You didn’t stab,” Zelda assures him. As soon as she turns the water off, the cut immediately starts bleeding again. “Here,” she suddenly lets go of his hand and starts working at the knot of the sash around her waist, and Link’s mind goes to places that it really, really shouldn’t. It takes her a while to actually untie it because she is very drunk. They're both very, _very_ drunk. Thankfully, once she pulls it off, she starts to wrap it diagonally around Link’s wet hand over the run of the wound, again and again until it doesn't bleed through the fabric anymore. She ties it lazily after she’s basically at the length’s end, smiling fondly down at him. Zelda is taller than Link by two or three inches. “I had to take first aid training to a counselor at Camp Korok in tenth grade. That should stop the bleeding.”

The chimes go off in his ears again. Link wants to kiss her. Link wants to lean up and kiss her in the middle of this goddamn crowded kitchen. Since Link’s pretty damn sure Zelda wouldn’t want to kiss him in a million years, he decides to just give her a smile instead. “Thanks,” he says, and Zelda nods, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. “God, I’m sure glad I didn’t stab people when I blacked out. That would’ve sucked. Sorry about your belt.”

“It’s just some cheap dollar-store ribbon,” Zelda assures him. For some reason, the gesture seems really sweet, and Link finds himself feeling like he’s got a chance after all. “Don’t worry about it.”

_Present_

Link is having a hard time comprehending anything at the moment. The memory he’d just recalled did _not_ seem right at _all_ , but it adds up with all the pictures and the bruise on his face and the ache in his knuckles and, oh, yeah, the giant fucking _knife wound_ on his hand.

“So,” he lets out a deep sigh, placing both his hands on the table. “I fought a freshman.”

“Yes.”

“Because he was saying mean shit about you.”

“I mean, it really wasn’t personal at all, but yes.”

“And I blacked out, and then won the fight while unconscious, and I didn’t stab anyone.”

“Yeah, you didn’t st— wait, you legitimately blacked out?” Zelda’s eyes widen, and her voice goes just a _little_ too loud, just enough to make Link’s head hurt. “I thought you were just saying random things because you didn’t know what you did. And you laughed it all off afterwards.”

“Yeah, what the _fuck_ ,” he breathes, running a hand through his hair and pulling it. “The adrenaline made me black out, and then I just, I just fucking _laughed it off_.” This is so concerning that Link can’t even fucking begin to understand it. “Oh my _Christ._ Hey— why was there bananas? Why the hell was there bananas?”

“Because somebody threw bananas. I can’t believe how vividly you’re remembering everything,” Zelda notes, sipping a bit more of her coffee. “I wish I took more pictures.”

“Well, it’s like I’m remembering less and less each time. Did we keep drinking?”

Zelda chews her lip. “I think... somebody made us Irish coffee after you sang ‘Smooth’ by Santana. I’m pretty sure. Ninety percent sure.”

“What’s Irish coffee?”

“Coffee, sugar, cream, and Bailey’s.”

“Shhhhhit,” Link hisses. “I guess that explains why we hadn’t passed out at this point. Show me the next one. I wanna see if I remember it.”

Zelda picks up her phone and swipes to the next picture, but she makes a face. “... I don’t know if you were here for this one.”

“Let me see.”

Reluctantly, she hands it over. It’s a front-camera picture of Urbosa kissing Zelda on the cheek. They both look very pleased with themselves.

_Memory_

_Yunobo’s house - Living room_

_Saturday, 1:13 AM_

Link only loses sight of Zelda for what feels like a split second before she disappears and it all starts to go south. At first, he tries to pretend like everything’s fine; he’s not a baby, he can go without his best friend for a little while. She probably just went to the bathroom or something. And even if she didn’t, everybody needs space sometimes. Link doesn’t wanna weird her out by being too clingy or whatever.

So he talks to Mipha for a few minutes on the couch. Mipha’s reasonably tipsy, and she seems to be in a good mood because she met this nice girl from Hateno Tech who let her borrow her big fluffy jacket. She keeps leaning in all close to Link when they talk, and Link doesn’t know why. Maybe she’s having trouble holding herself up. Link has felt like he’s been on the brink of falling over for the past hour or so.

Midway through the conversation, he starts worrying about Zelda so hard that his hands start shaking. What if she passed out? What if she's unsafe? Of course Zelda can take care of herself, but she’s _very_ drunk. Okay. Okay, he needs to go find her. He looks Mipha in the eyes as he wobbles upright, and he says, “Bye, Midna,” before leaving.

He starts pushing through a bunch of people to get out of the area, and he doesn’t care about being polite anymore. When he’s in that TV-room hallway again, Cotera comes out of nowhere and throws her arms around him, slurring, “ _Link,_ you beautiful son of a bitch—”

“Not now,” he grumbles, and he keeps walking, and eventually she hums in agreement and just falls off. He keeps opening all the doors that haven’t been locked or barricaded with kitchen chairs; one door leads to an office where Paya and that tall maraca kid are on a wide-screened desktop computer, tearfully watching Youtube videos of cute dogs. One door leads to a closet where about four girls are sharing a vape pen, packed into the tiny space like sardines. They offer for Link to join, but he declines. And then the next door leads to—

The next door leads to a bedroom where Urbosa is kissing Zelda’s cheek and they’re taking a picture of themselves. They’re all huddled up on Yunobo’s bed, and Urbosa’s got one of her strong arms around her. They fall out of their poses, and they laugh and hold each other tighter. They don’t even notice that the door opened.

Link slams it shut and runs back through the hallway, back to the living room. He wants to cry. He isn’t tall or buff or sociable or pretty enough for Zelda. He has _nothing_ to offer to Zelda. Of _course_ Zelda should find someone who’s as great as her. Why did Link ever kid himself into thinking that he deserved someone like her as a girlfriend? Or in his life at _all,_ for that matter? He’s just weighing Zelda down at this point, isn’t he? He’s just dead weight, and she feels obligated to have him stick around because she feels bad for him— she _pities_ him. Link is pitiful, and he’s taking advantage of a lovely girl who’s far too kind to turn him away.

Having completely spaced out, Link finds himself by the couch again, hanging onto a wall to keep himself from falling over. His vision’s blurring with tears. He scans his surroundings for any source of comfort at all— someone familiar, somebody to talk to, something to drink— and then he sees _Sidon_ chatting with that one Naboris girl over by the fireplace, and relief washes over him. Sidon’ll know what to do. Sidon _always_ knows what to do.

“Sidon!” Link yells, and he accidentally runs into the girl before he gets to Sidon and throws his arms around him, burying his head in his chest. “Sidon, how’re you? How you doin’?”

“Link!” Sidon laughs, placing a very wide hand on his back. “I’m doing fine. Everyone, this is Link,” he says, and even though it’s obvious that he’s wasted, he’s still quite eloquent. “Have you had a Noble Pursuit yet? Pokki made me a ton of Noble Pursuits. Pokki, can you be a dear and get Link a Noble Pursuit—?”  
  
“Nah, nah, I don’t want one,” Link sighs, resting his weight on Sidon. He’s a very large person. “I just wanna talk. I have a lot of feelings. I have a whole ton of feelings, Sidon.”

“... Do you, now?” He sounds intrigued. “What kind of feelings?”

“Stupid feelings,” Link mumbles. He closes his tired eyes. He could probably fall asleep standing up against him like this. “I don’t wanna be alone. Sidon, I don’t like bein’ alone.”

“N _obody_ likes being alone,” says Sidon. “You can— hey, look at me,” he takes his hand off Link’s back and props up his chin so that he sees his sincere expression. He looks so _cool_ leaning against the bookshelf like that with his eyes all warm and his teeth all white and sharp. Sidon is just as handsome as everybody says he is. “You can always come to me, Link. I’m always here.”

Link manages a smile. It’s good to have friends like this. “You’re a real one, Si—”

And then he hears Pokki laughing as Sidon swiftly leans down and pulls him into a passionate kiss, still holding his Noble Pursuit in one hand. Link stands there in shock and does nothing as it happens. His lips taste like Carmex and liquor.

The memory starts to go hazy after that. Mipha yells, _“No!”_ from the other end of the room, so Sidon breaks the kiss and tells Link to wait where he is while he goes and sorts this out with his sister. Link feels betrayed and worried and shaky and awful at this point because he did _not_ want to kiss Sidon, even if he's all tall and nice or whatever.

Link realizes that the only reason anybody’s ever nice to him is because they want something from him.

That’s when he starts crying quietly, tears brimming in his eyes and rolling down his numb cheeks. He busts out through the crowd and through the front door, running until he’s met with the fresh night air and the silence of the front porch. Revali’s Thunderbird sits in front of the driveway as perfect as ever, so he darts out towards it for no reason at all. The top’s up, but the door opens when he tries pulling the handle. Link throws himself into the back seat with no further thought, curling up against the leather, shoving his face in his hands and wondering what kind of cruel god is responsible for making him live his life like this.

_Present_

“... Okay, yeah, I, uh… wasn’t there,” Link coughs, finding that there’s a frog in his throat. He won’t get into that one. “Next one?”

Zelda swipes again. It’s an up-close picture of Mipha chugging straight from a bottle of Hennessy with tears in her eyes. Its timestamp shows that it was taken about five minutes after the last. “She was really upset for the second half of the party,” Zelda says sympathetically. “I let her vent to me, but she was crying so hard that I couldn’t understand anything she was saying.”

“Well… Sidon kissed me, and she saw,” Link confesses; he sort of expects a big reaction from Zelda, but she simply purses her lips before giving an understanding nod. “I mean, I don’t _like_ him like that, but Mipha must’ve just been upset because she doesn’t like the idea of one of us being with Sidon. Like what happened at lunch. Same thing.”

Zelda squints. She presses a finger against her temple. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Don’t know what?”

“You _seriously_ don’t know?”

“I— I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Link’s in no condition for mind games right now.

“Alright, well. That’s a problem for another day.” She shows the next picture— it’s a flash selfie of Link and Zelda both grinning somewhere dark. It doesn’t ring any bells, but Link’s at least glad that he’d met up with Zelda again. “I don’t remember this at all.”

“Me neither. What’s the next one?”

There’s a forty minute gap between that picture and the next, which shows an extremely angry Revali throwing a glass of wine on Link’s shirt. That explains the smell, but he draws a blank yet again.

“Ooh— this one’s a Boomerang,” Zelda says; she plays him a looping gif of Yunobo shattering a forty on the tile floor of the kitchen, and he watches it a few times. “Yeah, I think my memory stops right after talking to Mipha, but Traysi said this is when the cops came to shut it down. Oh, speak of the devil,” she says as she finds that the next picture is one of just herself with blue-and-red lights flashing on her sunny face. It’s adorned with a Snapchat caption that reads “ _fuck da police!!!!”_

Link wants to say something about the picture, but she shows him the next before he can object: it’s a selfie of her and Link in what’s obviously Link’s room. That one poster of the horses that he’s had above his bed since middle school is clearly visible behind them. Zelda’s hand is holding his shoulder. “We got home safe,” he notes, relieved albeit confused.

“My bank says I got charged for an Uber at 2:29 AM,” Zelda responds. She swipes to the next picture— it’s almost exactly the same as the last, except Link is looking at her fondly in this one. He’s still looking at her in the next picture, too. “This is… this is what I needed to talk to you about,” she says tiredly. “This next one here.”

In the picture after that, Link is leaning up and kissing Zelda. Zelda’s eyes are all wide and shocked.

Link’s blood goes cold.

Before he can even start apologizing profusely, Zelda cuts him off with, “I mean, it might be taken out of context,” even though the image really, _really_ looks like Link forcefully kissed Zelda last night. Link feels absolutely disgusting. Link wants to head into the café bathroom and hang himself with his twelve-dollar Target-brand belt. Link wishes he’d just left Zelda alone freshman year in the first place instead of opening up and taking advantage of her kindness just to do _this_ to her.

“I… I am so, _so_ sorry,” Link says, his heart thrumming violently in his throat. “I’m so _sorry_ , Zelda, that isn’t—”

“You were really drunk,” she offers, raising her shoulders. “We both were.”  
  
“W-well, yeah, I was drunk, but that doesn’t _excuse_ this,” he stresses, and he tries to point to the picture, but he finds that he can’t bring himself to look again. Three and a half years of irreplaceable friendship down the drain just because Link’s a fucking asshole. “This isn’t okay. That was— that’s horrible. I did something awful to you. I’m so, so, so sorry.”

Zelda’s got this disappointed look in her eyes that makes Link wanna punch himself in the face. “I… I forgive you, of course,” she says, and Link almost tears up. “It was just a mistake, that’s all. I only mean… It just didn’t seem right to keep something like this from you.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And it’s not like that’s something that you would do while _sober,_  so.”

Link freezes right then. He’s frighteningly close to admitting that he’s wanted to kiss Zelda since forever and that the fact that their first kiss ended up being drunken harassment makes him want to drink arsenic, but then he realizes that Zelda’s not talking about kissing _her_ — no, she’s referring to kissing people without consent in _general_. That makes more sense. Now he just feels like even more of a dumbass. “Well—  but even then, I still— “

“Link?”

He swallows dryly. “Yeah?”

“It’s okay.” Zelda deletes the photo and locks her phone. Then she smiles at him, and Link’s heart crumbles into pieces.

She already paid for the drinks, so they leave a few minutes afterward. She offers to walk him home out of courtesy, but he declines; as much as he loves her, having her over is a little embarrassing considering how much wealthier her family is than his. He cringes at the thought of her being in his tiny cluttered room last night, and then he cringes again thinking about the picture. Yeah, it’s probably best if they’re not at his apartment right now.

Zelda gives him a hug right before they part ways. He tries his damndest not to cry as he tells her that her belt is ruined and he threw it away, and Zelda just laughs and reassures him that it was only a cheap piece of ribbon. He isn’t sure if the hangover is amplifying the guilt or not, but he feels like the absolute fucking scum of the earth.

After that, the walk back home takes about a hundred years. He lets himself into the apartment, drags himself to his bed and hurls himself onto it, crying into his pillow for a little while. He thinks about Zelda, indulging himself in thoughts about how he _used_ to have a shot with her before this, even though he knows he never had a goddamn chance in the first place. She’s miles out of his league. She’s miles out of _anyone’s_ league— well, maybe somebody cool like Urbosa. Are Zelda and Urbosa going out now? If so, then good for her. Zelda deserves someone strong and confident like that. Link could never hope to be like that.

Then Link starts crying over little things like how bad his hand hurts and how ugly he always looks in the clothes he likes and how Sidon kissed him when he didn’t want to be kissed— and how he kissed _Zelda_ when she didn’t want to be kissed. Another spiral of self-loathing overtakes him after that. Then he tries to make himself feel better by cooking himself an omelette, but it makes him sick, so he’s hunched over the toilet for about fifteen minutes afterwards. And then he tries to get some annotations done for AP Literature, but it feels like he forgot how to read. He ends up passing out at about 3PM and not waking up until after dark. Somewhere in that timeframe, Link gets out of bed, writes a manifesto on the back of a church flyer where he swears off consuming any type of alcohol ever again, and then goes back to sleep. Zelda doesn’t contact him for the rest of the weekend.

_Monday, 12:06 PM_

The dreaded return to school goes better than expected. Other than a few weird glances and a few awkward high-fives and a few questions from teachers about the giant strip of gauze on his hand, the day is pretty ordinary. He keeps to himself in his first three classes because none of his friends are in them, brewing in anxiety for the inevitable awkwardness when they all reunite; Mipha’s upset because Sidon kissed him, Zelda’s probably secretly upset because Link kissed her and she’s just too polite to say so, and Revali is upset for some unknown reason, as he never remembered why he was angrily throwing wine on him in one of those last pictures.

He expects some sort of confrontation when he finally makes it to Mr. Daruk’s room, finding that Revali and Mipha are already there, but when he sits down and pulls out his lunch, they both ignore him. Revali’s on his phone and Mipha’s solemnly eating a sandwich. Well, okay. Link can live with this. He likes silence.

It’s only when Zelda arrives at the table and starts eating silently that Link starts to feel guilty. He can’t really play peacemaker because he has a hard time talking to anybody except— well, you know— but he still feels the urge to do something about the weird sinister atmosphere.

The silence goes on for nearly ten minutes before Zelda finally clears her throat, looks at Link and says, “Hey, I need to talk to you about something later.”

Out of nowhere, Revali squawks out a laugh, throwing his phone down on the desk. “About what, huh?”

“None of your business,” she responds promptly, and Mipha stops chewing. “Something private.”

“Something _private_?”

“Just— something stupid, okay? It happened Friday night—”

“Oh, I _know_ it happened Friday night,” he says cynically, “we _all_ know it goddamn happened Friday night. Now are you gonna apologize, or are you and your boytoy just gonna sneak off again?”

Link’s eyes go wide. He looks at Zelda, expecting her to have some sort of idea of what’s going on, but she doesn’t. Did that picture get out or something? “What…” Zelda squints, “What are you even talking about?”

Revali puffs out an exasperated breath. “I’m _talking_ about how you two fucked in my fucking car,” he says, sticking his hands out in emphasis.

Mipha swallows harshly.

Link’s mind finds that this is a good time to fill in the blanks, and he sits there staring at Zelda like an idiot as he feels reality fall apart from under his feet.

_Memory_

_Revali’s car_

_Saturday, 1:21 AM_

“Hey, Link,” Zelda says right as she opens the door, and it takes Link a second to uncurl himself and sit up straight against the leather seats in order to front like he hadn’t just been crying his eyes out. His heart double-jumps when it sets in that Zelda had come out to find him. “Link, are you okay?” she asks. A streetlamp above them pours yellow light through the window behind Link, illuminating Zelda’s face, showing the black roots of her blonde hair and the blue lipstick prints over her cheeks. Everything else is pitch black and silent. “Sidon said you were upset.”

“Sidon said a _lotta_ things,” Link sniffs. “I don’t feel good.”

“Why don’t you feel good?”

“‘Cause…” he trails off. He feels dizzy and tired. “You ever felt like everybody’s just tryin’ to use you for somethin’?”

“Oh, fuckin’ _always_ ,” goes Zelda. “You know how Urbosa— oh, sorry, I didn’t tell you ‘cause it just happened, like, two minutes ago— she was, like, kissin’ me or whatever, and then she just basically told me she thought we should go out ‘cause it’d act as a merger between Hylia and Naboris! And that’s, like… the only fuckin’ reason she was givin’ me attention in the first place! How shitty is that?”

“What the fuck? That’s _so_ shitty,” Link says disgustedly. “That’s awful.”

“And then my _dad’s_ kinda tryin’ to use me, too. He wants me to be this fuckin’ role model church-girl-honor-student whatever to impress all his rich friends n’ make the family look good since Mom’s dead. He just wants me to make us look good. That’s all he cares about.” She sighs, then leans back against the seat, scooting in towards Link a little more. She smells like liquor and that one perfume she has with the blue and white flowers on the bottle. “Link, is your dad dead? I always forget.”

“Nah, just in the army,” he snickers, finding something funny about the bluntness of the question. Zelda laughs too. She lays her head on his shoulder, and her arm presses against his again. Her skin is hot. Link’s mind goes completely stupid.

They sit in the dark like that for a little bit, and Link doesn’t want to cry anymore. And then Zelda starts chuckling again out of nowhere, and Link goes, “What?”

Giddily, she says, “You’re quiet.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Why?”

“I dunno,” he answers. “I never got anything good to say. Everythin’ I say is stupid, mostly, n’ everybody’s always expecting me to do stuff for them, so why would I let them down by saying stupid shit all the time?” He scratches his neck. He’s never really talked about this before. “I get all itchy n’ anxious when I gotta talk. I hate it. I only like talking to you.” He hesitates. “And my mom.”

There’s another pause there, and then Zelda goes, “Y’know, I thought you hated me for the first couple months we had to work together.”

Link looks at her, and she’s just an inch away. Her pupils are all wide, and her green eyes look yellow in the streetlight. “Why?”

“‘Cause you didn’t talk to me.”

“Well, I’m talkin’ to you now,” he says, and she breathes a laugh, putting more of her weight on his right. His battered left hand grips his own thigh. Everything’s still a bit numb. “I’ve always liked you. I just didn’t talk to you ‘cause I get weird about talkin’.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I never got anythi— hey, I just _told_ you why,” Link laughs.

“No, why do you like me?” asks Zelda. Her hand moves to the back of his neck and then up, slowly and gently tugging at the tie in the back of his hair.

He breathes out harshly, looking out through the windshield, trying to push his mind off of what he’s been trying not to want for forever. “Well, that’s, that’s ‘cause…” Zelda pulls out the band and puts it around her wrist, playing with his hair until it fluffs out at chin-length. “That’s ‘cause you’re all strong and cool and smart and outspoken and great and pretty and shit like that,” Link says, still looking straight ahead as she stares at him. He knows he’ll never have the courage to say any of this any other time, so he might as well just do it now, even if she forgets it tomorrow. “I never say so ‘cause I don’t know how. You’re the most likable person ever,” he says, and his mouth seems dry and his voice seems muted as Zelda climbs into his lap and puts her arms around his shoulders. She’s heavy and warm and familiar and she smells like blue and white flowers. “You’re the best friend I ever had.”

“You’re the best friend _I_ ever had,” Zelda repeats. Then she presses a kiss against his forehead, shifting her weight.

“Y-you’re the best _person,_ ever,” he says sincerely, his ears burning. “Ever in the entire world.”

Then Zelda leans down and kisses his lips harshly and clumsily, and years’ worth of pent-up frustration sends him reeling, causing Link to throw his arms around her in a vice-like grip until they’re close as can be. For a split second he wishes that he didn’t drink so that he could feel every last part of the sensation, currently numbed to the point that all he can sense is pressure and heat— but still, it’s really, _really_ fucking good, so who the hell even cares—

“ _Link,”_ she breathes when she pulls back for an instant, but then she just kisses him hard again and presses her tongue into his mouth, giving him nothing to do except reciprocate and give in. It’s all very rushed and very hot, and Link can’t hear anything except their shaky breathing and the noise of his clothes dragging against the leather seat every time she grinds against him. “You’re so fuckin’ hot,” she says against his ear, and Link clenches his teeth to keep from moaning out loud, painfully aware of her weight in his lap and the tightness of his jeans, he can’t goddamn believe that this is _happening_ —

And then she grabs one of his hands and pushes his palm against her chest, and Link’s mind goes utterly blank as he lunges up to kiss her again hungrily, dazedly. That’s why he doesn’t really react when her other hand reaches underneath him, prying into his back pocket and grabbing his wallet, knocking out a bunch of garbage receipts onto the floor of the car until she pulls out the condom he’d taken from the front desk of the nurse’s office almost as a joke when he’d rolled an ankle in the hallway a couple weeks back.

“Wanted this for years,” Zelda huffs out as she shoves his wallet back in his pocket, “Wanted you for years.” She’s grinning at him, so close that he feels her hot breath against his cheek. She lowers herself to kiss his neck, biting and sucking until Link’s legs tense up and he digs the nails of his bandaged hand into her waist. His other hand’s still awkwardly cupping the front of her shirt, but he doesn’t really want to move it at all. And after that, she kisses him again, and she takes his hand off her waist and guides it to the front of her ripped jeans, and everything starts to go hot and quick and fuzzy in his head—

_Present_

“... What the fuck,” Link says, loud enough to make Mr. Daruk take off his headphones and stare at him. His face is fucking molten. He’d just remembered the entire fucking ordeal in full. He remembers him and Zelda taking a goddamn picture together afterwards. He remembers the two of them stumbling back into the party with their arms around each other. He remembers Zelda bragging about it to Revali, and he remembers Revali subsequently throwing his glass of rosé on his shirt in response. Again, what the _fuck._

Revali’s eyes widen. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk,” he says, entranced. Then he starts laughing, louder and louder until he’s practically in hysterics. Mipha puts her sandwich down and lays her forehead on the desk. “Link, in the four fucking years I’ve known you, that’s the only time you’ve ever fucking spoken! After being confronted about fucking in my goddamn car! You stupid son of a bitch!” He bangs his fist down and throws his head back, cacking and cawing until he goes into a coughing fit, putting his head down as well.

Again, Link looks at Zelda— her face is bright crimson, and she’s hunched over with her elbows on the desk and her fingers tented over her mouth. She’s looking at Link’s black hairtie on her wrist. They make eye contact, and Zelda stares him down, clearing her throat as she lifts her head. “Link?” she says. “A word?”

He feels like he’s on the verge of a goddamn heart attack as they get their things and stand up; as soon as she gets her backpack over her shoulders, she starts to silently lead him out, taking them out of the classroom and out of the hallway through the red double-doors at the end and out into the overcast, humid April afternoon.

He follows her without a word as she takes him past the cafeteria and past the Q-Wing and past the grove where most of the seniors sit for lunch. All the while, Link desperately tries to think up things to say in this situation— what do you even _say_ when something like this happens? Is he supposed to apologize? Did Zelda even remember any of it? Does she _regret_ it? Is Link gonna be able to live with himself after all of this shit?

She finally stops once they’re in the faculty parking lot, secluded and alone save for the incessant calling of the crows in the sycamores across the street. She sets down her backpack on the asphalt, taking her phone out of the front pocket and tapping away with a diligent look on her face.

“I…” Link blows out a breath, thoroughly overwhelmed. “Do you, uh… do you remember it?”

“Yeah,” she nods, smiling a little bit. “I just did now.”

He bites down on the inside of his cheek. “All of it?”

“Hold on— come here,” she says, motioning him over to stand next to her and look at her phone’s display. It’s the picture of Link kissing her. “I wanted to look at the picture again, so I went into my recently deleteds’, and, I…” She swipes left. It’s the same photo except Zelda’s eyes are closed. She swipes again, and Zelda’s cupping his jaw with her free hand. Again, and the photo’s blurry, and they’re falling sideways onto Link’s bed. “I found all of these. So you don’t need to feel guilty.”

Link blinks. “Oh,” he responds simply as his face flushes and a massive weight lifts itself off his chest.

Zelda puts her phone in her pocket and clasps her hands afterwards, turning to look at him. “I took you out here because I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” he asks stupidly.

Her thumb presses back and forth at her knuckle like it always does when she’s anxious. He sees her think for a moment. “I often…” She chews her lip and furrows her brow, trying to put something into words. “I refuse to let myself… _want_ things,” she says, and Link realizes that she’s using the tone and diction that she usually saves for public speaking. “I repress a lot of emotions that I feel are unjust or selfish. That’s— it’s one of the mant reasons that I value our _friendship_ so much,” she jerks her hands forward, and Link nods an affirmation. “Because I finally have a chance to vent my feelings in a safe atmosphere.”

“Sure—”

“But since I was _drinking,_ ” she continues, “I believe that my repressed feelings and wantings came to the surface in ways that I…” she swallows and amends herself with, “that are considered regrettable. This caused me to take advantage of the safety that you offer me, and I deeply apologize for it.” She looks down at her feet.

Link knows he should probably try to be eloquent back in order to acknowledge her effort, but his emotions get the best of him, and he blurts out, “You don’t regret it?”

“Of _course_ I don’t regret it,” she says back just as quick, and Link’s heart jumps so quick that he nearly gets whiplash. “It was you. And it was really—" she stops herself. "Well.”

There’s a pause where Link’s just trying to collect himself. “... Well, what?”

“I mean, I was gonna say ‘nice,’ but…” Zelda kisses her teeth, and Link chokes on a laugh. “C’mon, ‘ _bad_ ’ isn’t the right word either, though… _uncoordinated_ ,” she snaps her fingers, barely keeping herself from cracking up. “That’s what I meant. Uncoordinated, yet sincere.”

“We were fuckin’ _slammed_ ,” Link snickers, and then they both descend into laughter for a little while, recounting how it probably took him longer to get Zelda’s fly down than it did for him to get off. The whole ordeal was a rough mixture of drunkenness and inexperience which resulted in much more emotional satisfaction than physical.

When the humor eventually fades, they’re left standing there all awkward and anxious in the faculty parking lot by themselves. It feels like the crows have gone quiet. Link can’t stop looking at her. Even if things are okay for now, he still feels guilty for keeping his feelings from her— at this point, not confessing for this long almost seems like a breach of trust. Like he’s lying to her.

And Zelda notices that he’s tense because of _course_ she does. “Are you okay?” she asks, and Link thinks for a second.

He fixes his hair back. Then he starts cautiously: “There’s, uh… something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but. Because of what happened, I don’t think it’d be fair of me to tell you anymore. Because you, um,” he’s already running on fumes at this point, “You might feel obligated to answer a certain way when I tell you. Because of, y’know, what happened. A-and I don’t want to force you into any situation where you feel like you have to spare my feelings at your own expense, so I dunno how I can even _begin_ to tell you half the stuff I think about without putting you at risk for—”

“I love you too,” says Zelda.

  
“See, I can’t say something that because—” Link stops. There’s a beat where he just stares at her, a smile growing across her face. “Uh... what?”

“I said I love you too.” With a bit more confidence, she says, “I’ve loved you since the summer after freshman year.”

His breath rattles in. Holy fuck, he’s about to fucking _cry_. “Y-you don’t... “ he trails off, “you don’t have to say that, okay? Just because we did that, it doesn’t mean you have to—”

“I _know_ I don’t have to say it— why in the _hell_ would I say it if I didn’t mean it, Link?”

“Oh, Zelda—” He throws his arms around her, and it feels like _heaven_ when she hugs him back, feels like the stars have aligned and the gods have blessed him and all is right in the world. He blinks the tears back down and presses his face into the shoulder of her sweater, relishing in the fact that he can sense _everything_ , the softness of the fabric and the strength in her grip and the scent of flowery perfume in her hair. "I love you," he says, finally. "I love you."

"I know," she runs a hand through his hair again and again, "I know."

Then the school bell rings from afar, signifying that lunch is over and that they’ve got to get to fourth period. Neither of them move.

"Hey, Link,” Zelda says softly.

He sniffs. “Yeah?”

“Did you walk to school today?”

“... Yeah?”

“Let’s ditch.”

Link pulls back to give her a dumbfounded look. “Are you serious?”

“As the plague.”

“Don’t you have perfect attendance?”

In response, Zelda pulls him in by the shoulders and kisses him so sweetly that his knees almost give out. It’s _leagues_ better than any of the kisses they’d shared on Friday. When she pulls back, Link dreamily replies, “Let’s ditch,” and Zelda laughs even sweeter.

As they cross the street, Zelda chuckles to herself and says, "Mipha's never gonna forgive me for this one," and Link has no idea what she means. They get into Zelda’s shitty ‘98 Odyssey without issue— even though her dad’s super rich, he insists on making her use his old car for some asinine reason— and she plugs her phone into the auxiliary adapter for the tape player. She plays the first ten seconds of “Smooth” by Santana before Link threatens to get out of the car and turn her over to the authorities, so she settles for “September” by Earth Wind & Fire as an alternative. Then they start driving without aim or destination, past the school and past the suburbs and through Kakariko Village and eventually onto the highway, talking about things they’d never had the courage to talk about before.

Link talks about his frequent bouts of disassociation, about his disdain for the military, about his issues with gender dysphoria and his inability to wear anything that he wants to. Zelda talks about the crushing weight of her father’s expectations, about how much pressure there is on her to get into a prestigious college, how she wants to see the world and study nature instead of being the public figure that everyone wants her to be.

They support and validate each other, and they hold hands on the stick shift.

They reach the coast in an hour, the Pacific on their right and massive flats of agriculture on their left. They keep on driving until the gray-white sky gets brighter and the fields get greener and the ocean gets bluer. They keep on driving until no one can find them, listening to music until Zelda’s phone runs out of battery, the day preserved only in their memories.

**Author's Note:**

> a few MORE disclaimers:  
> \- sorry i kept referencing John Mulaney  
> \- everybody is bisexual in this au  
> \- my twitter is @botwzelink lmao


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